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The Lawspeaker
07-27-2012, 12:01 AM
k_uzw1my_Ik
A Life in Japan (Documentary)

No subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7roo9BAsNE
English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_uzw1my_Ik
Svenska undertexter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qG6ctTi2Pc
日本語字幕: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0YrFOCE56Y

Documentary home page:http://alifeinjapan.com/
Documentary. Japan through foreign eyes. Interviews with nineteen foreign residents in Japan. Personal experiences and opinions, both the good and the bad stuff.
English with English subtitles.


Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=387344839745

Skrondsze
07-27-2012, 12:15 AM
That's interesting. I lived in Japan for 1 year as an exchange student and I can say the Japanese people have some very exquisite habits! I met many crazy japs who slept only 4 hours a day and studied 28 hours a day to get into med school but I also met some lovely people!

SilverKnight
07-27-2012, 07:17 AM
Just finished watching this with my fiance, we quiet enjoyed it.
Very dedicated, polite and traditional people. We in the west should envy and take for example some of their civilize characters.

Talvi
07-27-2012, 07:20 AM
That's interesting. I lived in Japan for 1 year as an exchange student and I can say the Japanese people have some very exquisite habits! I met many crazy japs who slept only 4 hours a day and studied 28 hours a day to get into med school but I also met some lovely people!

When and where did you go?

Im going from September.

Skrondsze
07-27-2012, 09:04 PM
When and where did you go?

Im going from September.

I went in 2009. I was only 15 years old. I didn't speak any japanese at all and I would recommend you to study japanese before going as I've never met any japanese who could speak english (except those who lived abroad). In fact, I could only truly enjoy living there in my last 2 months when I was relatively fluent in their language (Right now I forgot most of what I've learned but if a study a little I know I'll remember everything). I lived in Okayama-ken in what would be considered "inaka" for the japanese people (countryside). The city name was Kasaoka and the population was about 50000 people. My host family was very rich and as with most japanese family my host mother didn't work and she took care of the house while my host father was working (He was Buddhist monk). We had a huge temple in my house. Here are some pictures:

Cookies.


My school was a girl's only school hahaha. The year I went there they opened it for boys but there were only about 80 boys and 600 girls... so you can imagine that a handsome boy like me had a huge fan club :D. But it was all superficial as I couldn't communicate with them until the last 2 months I would say...

What I disliked about my experience was that I was too young and in Japan they judge you a lot by your age, even though I had an adult like behaviour when I told people I was only 15 (I was considerate very tall by the japanese at 1.78m (I'm now 1.81m and 18) so they thought I was like 18~20) shit happened. There was a law that forbade 15 or younger of staying out of home after 6 PM... and sometimes I would challenge it and get grounded etc...

I didn't like my school in terms of academic experience as it was a school for people who didn't intend to go to college and instead marry (it was a girl's only school) so they taught the girls how to cook, behave, how to make tea etc... So I just ended skipping most classes and instead going to the library to study japanese and read mangas, old japanese literature books (I would recommend Botchan), studying a lot of history (at that time I wanted to go to law school). Math was very weak and I had a good knowlodge and always liked math so I was completely bored. I was very lonely most of the time at school for about 6 months until I finally could make some friends (my japanese improved). Even though I was a good student my school insisted on putting me in a class according to my age (The girls were very silly, I mean, like 10 years old western kids) and it was very stressful as I felt they didn't care about my potential and instead they made me do some propaganda for the school like I was a model or something else which I really disliked and once I talked to my exchange program supervisor about that, that I was tired of doing that she was very rude like: "You are just a kid, you can't decide anything about that".

Apart from that, I had wonderful host family (my first one), I've learned a lot about the japanese culture and that was the single most important aspect of my exchange program. My only problem was my host brother, he didn't talk to me at all for about 4 months and treated me like I didn't exist. He ended up jealous about my relation with his family and started to behave bad which me made upset and also behaved bad sometimes and it came to a point where I had to change my host family for another one (I changed 3 times). The other 3 families were ok but I didn't have the same relation as the first one, they were much more closed and almost never talked, not even between themselves. My first family was an exception because they had been a host family many times before. So after a changed family I was very lonely until I met some Australian guys who worked as english teachers and were married to japanese women. My contact with them was important because I met many open minded japanese people, who were already used to western culture and they spoke a little english. I had a great time with them. I also met many japanese-brazilians (there are about 250000 living in Japan) even though I didn't want to spend much time with them because I spoke portuguese, but at the same time they also knew many japanese who behaved different from the common japanese and it was awesome.

This post is getting long haha. Well, to finish it I would say the japanese people are very, very, very closed and don't communicate much with foreigners unless they have lived abroad or have already been introduced to western people before! I had a great time but If I could I would have chosen to go there right now that I'm 18.

SilverKnight
07-27-2012, 09:24 PM
Great biography Beplosiu

Enjoyed reading (just as if I where watching parts of the documentary). I always wanted to travel to this amazing country of Japan ever since before 10!. I used to watch lots of Pokemon, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Shaman king etc which inspired me about their culture all trough my early childhood into my teenage years :D

In DR we have some Japanese people who came recently or where of Japanese ancestry from decades back. Actually a girl I had a crush with had Japanese father, Dominican mother, very cute.

Talvi
07-27-2012, 09:30 PM
Aaah I thought you went to uni there or something. Im going to Tsukuba university for a research program for MA. And I can also speak Japanese and have many Japanese friends so those things will not be a problem for me. :) (my major is Japan studies)